Epson Workforce Pro GT-S50 review

The Epson Workforce Pro GT-S50 is a desktop document scanner. It has a 75-sheet automatic document feeder and scans both sides of a sheet of paper in one pass, at resolutions up to 600dpi and 24-bit colour.

Epson Epson Workforce Pro GT-S50 Price

RRP: £364.34

The Epson Workforce Pro GT-S50 is a little larger than most desktop document scanners, but not terribly so. It is also the only document scanner we've tested with an LED status menu, which can be helpful when trouble shooting or using presets. Your PC connects to the GT-S50 via USB 2.0.

The accompanying EpsonScan software is easy to use and should be familiar to anyone who's used a flatbed Epson scanner in the past. Its not flashy, but its functional, and we'll take that any day.

To test the speed of the Epson Workforce Pro GT-S50 scanner, we ran a few tests: a one-page, 300 dpi colour scan to a folder using the supplied scanner driver; a 10-page document with a mix of single and double-sided pages, and colour and black and white images and text to a folder using the provided driver; and lastly, an OCR scan from Acrobat Professional 9.

The Epson Workforce Pro GT-S50 turned in respectable numbers, taking 15 seconds for the single page test, 56 seconds for the 10-page test. The Scan into Acrobat Pro result was on the slow side, taking 29 seconds-nearly three times as long as the Canon ImageFormula DR-2010m, and 11 to 12 seconds longer than two others.

To test scan quality, we printed the one-page 300dpi scan to file document on our office colour laser printer. The Epson Workforce Pro GT-S50 scans were deemed to be of Good quality overall, without much in the way of noise and artifacts in the light areas of the image. colours, though not on the level of a good flatbed scanner, were better than other document scanners we've tested. In our OCR test with Acrobat, the Epson performed very well, requiring very little in the way of editing or cleanup.

OUR VERDICT

With respectable scan times, flawless (if dated looking) software, decent scan speeds, and the best looking colour scans we’ve seen from a document scanner, the Epson Workforce Pro GT-S50 is one of the better document scanners available.